The C-n-C Pit

This is a discussion on The C-n-C Pit within the Artistic Inspiration forum, part of the Off Topic Chat; It's decent. One thing that gets me is the color blending. I don't think the background blends in well with ...

It's decent. One thing that gets me is the color blending. I don't think the background blends in well with the render itself, but the concept it nice. The lighting is different from what I usually see, seeing as you were trying to get a night time look I believe I think the it mainly needs work on the color and blending, because I see good depth and the render is nice itself. The text is a little too simple for my tastes. Obviously this is kind of old, but I thought I'd do my part in CnC and your work now has improved since. Good job man

There's a few I missed but I think others have already given them CnC.

Your recent work has really been catching my eye. This is another good piece. Your render choice is good as it has natural flow and the placement is done well. The effects over his arm are really nice and subtle. While the C4Ds you've added flow well with the render I think their placement need work. The one to the right of the tag is quite distracting. I know that space would be quite empty without it but I'd move it closer to the render. There's also a little spike sticking up on the right side that I'd get rid of. You've got good depth in this piece and the colour of the whole piece works well. You've done a really good job with the text. Keep up the good work because I'm loving your recent stuff.

This is nice and simple but I can't see anything besides a render on a background with a smidging of lighting. The colours in the background don't match the render. There's no need to go overboard but you should add some effects to help blend the render into the background and to liven the piece up. Your render placement is good but this just needs more work.

I'm not a big fan of the size you've used for this piece and I don't like how the tag takes up the whole piece. The central placement of the render works because of the canvas your using but remember the rule of thirds. People don't go on about it for no reason. The smudging in the background looks pretty nice. There's not much flow but then the render doesn't really help with this. The colours you've chosen fit well. I'd look at downloading some new fonts because I think the one you've used is pretty horrible. The bespoke or sparkles you've added across her look nice but there's one just under her chin that I'd erase as it stands out too much. My main problem with this is that it looks like there's an outer glow around her which is adding lighting where there is no need for it. I'd work on adding shadows for lighting with the burn tool as this will help you create a more believable effect over your whole sig. It will also help with your depth which on this looks a bit artificial. Keep on practicing. I'd say you just need to look at the bigger picture when working on your sigs rather than just following the steps to make sure you've ticked all the boxes.

The whole thing looks a little too dark and it takes away the quality and depth of the whole piece. It has a lot of potential from what I can see, and you've got some good flow going on (At a second glance, the front C4D looks a little flat and motionless) But the whole monotone look just doesn't help anything in my eyes. It needs light, nothing too extreme but it just needs brightening up. It looks like its been overkilled by an adjustment layer? I might be wrong though. You've done well for what's a more awkward stock/render. I'd like to see a similar sig that isn't so dulled down with the colors

Very evident that you had an idea of what you wanted to achieve before you started. Planning can be very helpful with difficult projects.

Good mix of colours. The colours compliment each other well.

Nice flow. There is a clear direction in which the sig is flowing and it looks good.

Nice use of lighting. The way the colours in the sig change to emphasise the light on the front of the render is very nice.

The Bad

Poor blurring. You've created an unrealistic picture with the way you've blurred the piece. How her shoulder is so out of focus and then her elbow and head aren't, this breaks any sense of immersion that you had beforehand.

Blending could have been done better. Again, the blurring is a main cause of this, but you could have done more to make the render more a part of the piece.

General Tips

Go easy on the blurring! By laying off the blurring a little you can make a piece much much better. You need to lean what to blur and how much you should blur it. If you're in doubt, just make a new layer and apply the image on it. I can't remember if you're on PS or GIMP but I'm going to assume PS. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur > 2px. Then grab a soft eraser and with 100% opacity erase over the main focal. I mean the main focal! Just do her head. Then lower the opacity to something like 70% and brush over the bits just around the focal that you want to bring into focus. Adjust to 50% and erase over anything else that you feel is too blurry. Use a continuous brush stroke with erasing with lower opacity brushes. Otherwise you'll be erasing 70% of the remaining 70% with each stroke.

- PS3T OG - All Hail The Eyepat
"If I find out that LeeMcD slags my good name off to anyone else I will personally track him down and teach the little puff a lesson." - LEE200

I like this piece a lot. You've got some good flow which you've created with the render and effects, and the lighting looks nice too. The piece could use with a bit of depth, however, and the focal point is just a little too centered for my tastes. Otherwise, my other gripe with this signature is that it's just soooo predominantly blue. I'd suggest darkening up the sides to a more black in order to create an improved sense of depth and atmosphere.

That being said, there is still room for improvement. The tag overall is a bit bright, lighting wise. I myself am not a big fan of the "Gaussian Blur set to Lighten" bloom effect, at least not when it's so harsh. Tone it back a little bit and it can be a really nice effect, though.

I like how your text looks, but feel it could be a little closer to the character, so as not to draw the eye away from it.

I think it could also benefit from a little bit of Sharpening and Blurring. Sharpening on the character's face/chest area, and blurring not only in the background, but on specific parts of the character, such as his "rear" arm, and that part of his cape under it.

Not a lot of blurring on those parts though - you don't want to overdo it.

Overall, it's a nice piece, but still a little unrefined. Just keep at it and keep practicing.

Thanks for that i do take on board what you guys say, how do i sharpen just one part of the sig and not the whole image ?

It's actually quite simple. There are two ways of doing it.

The first is to use the sharpen tool from the toolbar. It's under the same block as the blur and smudge tool (iirc) Set the strength of it (see the top of your screen) to something around 10% and sharpen what you need to. Just keep going over something until you get the level of sharpness you want

The second way, and my preferred way as it's much easier, is to use the sharpen filter from the filters menu at the top of the screen. Create a new layer and apply the image (Image > Apply image) From the filter menu simply select sharpen. I think you can repeat the filter stage again if you want by clicking ctrl+f though I'm not entirely sure. There is a way to do it though, otherwise just use your mouse and go through the motions again. Once you've added the filter simply get a soft (0% hardness) large brush and use the eraser tool to remove anything you don't want sharpened. You could also use a layer mask to remove parts though it's really not necessary.

- PS3T OG - All Hail The Eyepat
"If I find out that LeeMcD slags my good name off to anyone else I will personally track him down and teach the little puff a lesson." - LEE200

First off, I like this sig. It shows improvement and talent. I will start off by saying what I like about it. I like the focal placement, it accents the flow and you are able to see what is behind him. The depth is looking pretty good, I see you took Lee and Fox's advice with this. The flow too is pretty good in this sig. The text placement is better in this one than your last as well.

What I don't like about it though is how sharp the guy's face is. It upsets the balance of the rest of the piece a little bit. Try to tone it down, erase a little of the sharpened image, or use smart sharpen to choose how much you want sharpened.

First off, I like this sig. It shows improvement and talent. I will start off by saying what I like about it. I like the focal placement, it accents the flow and you are able to see what is behind him. The depth is looking pretty good, I see you took Lee and Fox's advice with this. The flow too is pretty good in this sig. The text placement is better in this one than your last as well.

What I don't like about it though is how sharp the guy's face is. It upsets the balance of the rest of the piece a little bit. Try to tone it down, erase a little of the sharpened image, or use smart sharpen to choose how much you want sharpened.

Well, I'm still pretty new at this and would like some cnc please. This is my fourth sig and I know I'm improving but it's hard for me to tell which parts specifically I need to improve more upon so any and all criticism is welcomed.

Well, I'm still pretty new at this and would like some cnc please. This is my fourth sig and I know I'm improving but it's hard for me to tell which parts specifically I need to improve more upon so any and all criticism is welcomed.

Considering you haven't been doing this for long you're not doing too bad.

Your render placement is close to spot on but you need to remember the rule of thirds when placing it. Usually just placing it off centre usually hits a sweet spot but with this piece you've got the shoulder where the face would look better. Split the canvas into 9 equal segments (two horizontal lines and two vertical) and where the lines cross is where you want to have your main focal points of a sig.

Also the render you've chosen doesn't really help you with defining flow. The hair is everywhere and takes up a lot of the sig space. In future try to pick a render that has an obvious fow, especially while you're starting out.

Try to keep your effect tidy by erasing any bits that don't flow or don't look too good. You could erase some effects that are over the focal and on the left side of the sig to make it more compact and keep focus on the render.

You've done well to pick colours that match with the render and your text placement is done well. Picking fonts and making text pop is something that can take a long time to click so I wouldn't worry too much about that at the moment.

It looks like you've tried to create a light source in the correct place but there's a lot more you could do to enhance it and make it look more natural.

At the end of the day you seem to be heading in the right direction and so long as you practice the basics you'll be making impressive sigs in no time. A lot of the time it's the basics that make a sig look better than going over the top with fancy effects. Keep looking up tutorials and give them a read before you try them. If it seems to complicated try to find something simpler. Keep up the good work.

My first sig in probably around 6 months or so, so I'm extremely rusty and could use some CnC. My main problem with this one was the double focal created by both the guy and the gun. :/ Amongst other things, of course.